Arizona weekly citizen., 1887-08-27
ABOUT POKER CHIPS.
MANUFACTURE OF THE LITTLE
 DISKS THAT SO MANY HANoLE.s


 DISKS THAT so MANY HANDLE.
 fnforu.tion on the Subject from
 Dealer in Sporting Artieies-Msteriai
 of Which Checks Are Made-Extent oi
 the Trade.
 Don't play poker with man who Juggies
 with his cheeks. DiStrust him II you ma enAa
 |, moment of abstraction he picks up .,ac,. Inf whites and drops the cheeks one at
 ,irne from the bottom of the pile and make
 s.c, o,,s turn completely over and yet land
 l,uarsly upOn the one beneath 1t Suspect
 hin, if he can divide stack and run it to-
 ,,a,bey again with one hand. Such familiar
 tt, with tbe disks betOkens long experience,
 nnd if he is not a professional he Is at least
 man who has spent years in acquiring this
 nrofciency at the green covered tables Few
 an,tsurs have these tricks, and, while pro
 fsssioraIs who have learned them may try
 hard to avoid practicing them, they VIII do
 if inadvertently iR moments of abstraction,
 and you can generally make up your mind
 that it is unproftable 70 at long in their com
 pany." ..-..
 The sneaker was a dealer in sporting srti-
 cles. and while talking he Illustrated his re
 marks by deftly mInglins red, white and blue
 r,I-er ctius with one hand ~TheSe are the comp0,ition chips he said "Even m poker
 cl,ius there has been great improvement m
 tbe last decade In old times we used noth- ing but ivory, and they cost from go to SIo A hundred. according to the amount of artistic haniiwork displayed upon them Then the chirs were like coins and a stack was worth
 its weight in silver, hut ivory chips were not ! as good as these we now sell for from SlO to l s25 thousand Ivory chips were always 6
 source of trouble to their owners They were ! seriously affected by changes of temperature ! and by moisture and were constantly crack ing or warping out of shape.
 THE BEST CHEEK
 '.The best cheeks afe those which are per | fectiy fiat, of even thickness and equal dla- meter. They must stack up evenly, for the adept poker player never wants the trouble of counting his checks He can pick up five, lay them against the side of an odd stack and
 cut of five moro. Putting the two tiyes to- gether he has the gage of half stack, and with them cuts out ten more checks from the
 pile to make an even stack. He will keep that stack whole as long as be can, to measure | up against Now you can easily see that cheeks must be all of the one thickness and perfectly fiat, or the measurement may be faulty. All the checks in use now are made | of composition pressed into dies. Rubber and celluloid cheeks are sold in considerable quan- | tities, but neither of these materials are con
 sidered as good as certain secret compositions
 made by five or six firms in this country with | shelllc as a basis
 ''Here is a check made in Newark. The ma | teria! seems as hard as stone and believe l Tft position The manufacturer has made at least | 2j OOJ. .CUO checks in the last five years They are made twenty-five at a time in steam heat
 ed presses, and these lines and figures which
 look like engraving are produced by raised figures in the mOlds. Before he produced | these cheeks they were all engraved by hand | at considerable cost, and the only low priced
 poker chips in market were plain Of ringed. | This Is the favOrite size of checks-just the
 diameter and thickness of silver dollar. The
 maker employ iOO hands, who can turn out about Sj, ,OJ0 cheeks every day, but the busi-
 ness is not confined to poker chips alone. ] They make fancy buttons, checkers, and mar | tingale rings of The same composition. Here is a white check with an owl outlined | in blue, and here are blue and red cheeks,
 with horse shoes, crowns, elephants and an- chors outlined in white. He has fifteen de 1 signs, six of which are special patterns made only for their originatOrs A year or two ago one of tue biz tobacco manufacturers Orler- ell 1000 0CO cheeks of this size with the ad- | vertiSemea. of brand of chewing tobacco | upon them. They were given away to GUS 1 touners, and the biggest part of them went
 west and south
 | AS A HOME AMUSEMENT.
 "Dil the gift Of this quantity of checks
 make any difference in sales with your No. the business is steadily increasing all | the time, and the increase k largely due to
 the fashionable popularity of draw poker us
 a home amusement. Poker parties seem to
 te increasing everywhere FveOr six young
 men make up a club to play at one anothers
 house.. and each one has to have full outfit
 of cards and cheeks. If they met in club room one set of cheeks would answer for all
 They pay s2 or s3 a hundred for the cheeks, and like to have different designs for each house they play at Dealers have their favorite designs, and because they talk them up to their customers, they sell great many of them to the exclusion Of other designs. l have a California customer, who buys nOth- ll. for bis trade but the horse shoe pattern, Hnl there Is a club uptown which uses nOth- Ing but shamrocks The members have faith in luck attending the trefOil. We sometimes have orders for 10000 cheeks at a time. An or!er of this kind generally asks for four col
 ors. Nearly Oue-haf will be white, One-third Ted. and the remainder divided between blue and yellow m the proportion of two blues to one yellow Yellow Is almost invariably
 used for the highest priced cheeks, and white
 for the lowest. These polished walnut boxes contain 100 cheeks. Half of them are white
 and the other half equally divided between red and blue. One box Is not enough for an ordinary poker party, and some little poker circles that know of have as many as GO cheeks. A party of five players should be able to get along nicely with 2OO cheeks, but many players have prejudice against sell ins from their winnings, and the banker may
 run out of checks while they are stacked up
 on the table in front of one or twOlucky men,
 who think that 1t will break their run of luck
 to cash any of them in before they are ready
 Co quit the game. Nearly all poker players
 are superstitious to degree. New York |